My husband the mechanical engineer really loves the Good Grips raison d'etre so I've received several tools as stocking stuffers, even though I have no issues in my hands and even if the item duplicated something I already had. Off the top of my head I can think of a veggie peeler, a box grater and a mandoline, and there could be one or two more. And where are they now? Each got thrown out. The plastic on the box grater broke so it couldn't stand up on its own. The blade on the mandoline dulled on about the fourth head of cabbage, and the peeler blade twirled under pressure--and of course peeling means applying pressure. Not one of those items lasted a year.

So though I'm no fan of the brand though I see many positive mentions here, I bought a GG pepper mill for our new camper van, which we haven't really gone camping in yet because of the cat situation that brought me to Eastern Washington where I'm posting from, because I cannot live without fresh pepper and it was a great size for the galley shelf (short, with a wide non-skid base). The $21 price tag didn't hurt either. That mill was one of the basics I borrowed from the van for the kitchenette here.

And god knows what I'll say a year from now, but right now this is my favorite pepper mill EVER. Beats the Pougeot I paid four times its cost for easily. What I like: it's not picky about what kind of peppercorn you use, tellicherry doesn't clog the grinder (a major problem with Pougeots), it produces a prodigious amount with each twist, and it's five different size settings are truly meaningful. Fine is very fine, and the fifth and coarsest setting produces the best coarse grind I've had from any pepper mill--I generally prefer a coarser grind than some mills are even capable of producing. Also, the setting doesn't drift around with use the way it does on my Pougeot which you have to be very careful about not inadvertently doing.

Heck, for the price and what a good pepper means to me, I could easily consider this guy a disposable and buy a new one every year or two when it wears out (as it should based on my experience)--but hey, maybe I've finally hit the jackpot. Anyway, for now? Highly reccomended.

My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov

We have the GG pepper and salt grinders and love them. We use them all the time and haven't had any issues with them (so far).

Like you, we had trouble with other things in the line that we've purchased in the past and were somewhat mystified as how they could successfully make a grinder that gets every day use, but other tools would fall short of our expectations.

...Eating is the only form of professionalism most people ever attain. - Don Delillo

I checked the reviews on Amazon and this was the worst I saw....many were very favorable

This OXO Pepper Grinder is ergonomically designed: the rubbery grip makes it easy to use, and the business end is on the top (which means loose pepper doesn't scatter around when the grinder is not in use).

Unfortunately, I was disappointed when I discovered that the grind on the finest setting is much too coarse. Even worse, it produces an uneven grind on every setting.

I almost returned it, but I suppose it can serve as a backup, or maybe I can put some sort of exotic, seldom-used peppercorns in it.

EDIT: I finally gave up trying to get good results with this pepper grinder. Since it was then too late to return to Amazon, I contacted the customer service department at Oxo and returned the item directly to them along with the purchase receipt. They then gave me a full refund for the purchase price. So extra credit to Oxo for honoring their satisfaction guarantee.

I checked the reviews on Amazon and this was the worst I saw....many were very favorable

This OXO Pepper Grinder is ergonomically designed: the rubbery grip makes it easy to use, and the business end is on the top (which means loose pepper doesn't scatter around when the grinder is not in use).

Unfortunately, I was disappointed when I discovered that the grind on the finest setting is much too coarse. Even worse, it produces an uneven grind on every setting.

I almost returned it, but I suppose it can serve as a backup, or maybe I can put some sort of exotic, seldom-used peppercorns in it.

EDIT: I finally gave up trying to get good results with this pepper grinder. Since it was then too late to return to Amazon, I contacted the customer service department at Oxo and returned the item directly to them along with the purchase receipt. They then gave me a full refund for the purchase price. So extra credit to Oxo for honoring their satisfaction guarantee.

That's the one.

And I admit I had to laugh at this reviewer saying it produces an uneven grind on every setting. This person doesn't understand the limitations of a round object and a $20 device! Or, name your price. I have never met a pepper mill that delivers a completely uniform grind nor a sopisticated pepper user who would actually want that. Better is when, especially on coarse, one gets a smattering of all sizes which gives a variety of pepper intensities. The nature of all the pepper mills I've used is that the setting you dial it to decides the largest object you'll get without placing any limit on smallness (back to the round objecct part).

That reviewer better stick to the canned stuff.

My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov

I told the story here when I first got it -- but my sister gave me a gift certificate to Williams Sonoma, and I looked up what their most popular item was, and it was the Graviti pepper mill. I didn't even understand how it worked when I ordered it. But there is no button to push, it is electric, and gravity activated. You pick it up and invert it over your food and it starts grinding. Funniest thing was when I knocked it off the table and it fell into a burlap bag that my wife had hung on a kitchen chair. I could hear it busily grinding pepper into the bag, whirrrrrr.

Received my package today and the mill works wonderfully with a uniform grind that produces a large amount of pepper per twist. You have to be careful though with the round black plastic disk that allows refilling. Mine came loose while grinding and when I went to sit it down, the disk came loose and a small amount of whole peppercorns rained on my Ranco Gordo beans dish. So check that the disk doesn't loosen while grinding.

Drew Hall wrote:Received my package today and the mill works wonderfully with a uniform grind that produces a large amount of pepper per twist. You have to be careful though with the round black plastic disk that allows refilling. Mine came loose while grinding and when I went to sit it down, the disk came loose and a small amount of whole peppercorns rained on my Ranco Gordo beans dish. So check that the disk doesn't loosen while grinding.

Drew

Mine never has, not even once. Maybe it was just on tighter in the first place? Anyway, they're good.

My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov

Drew Hall wrote:Received my package today and the mill works wonderfully with a uniform grind that produces a large amount of pepper per twist. You have to be careful though with the round black plastic disk that allows refilling. Mine came loose while grinding and when I went to sit it down, the disk came loose and a small amount of whole peppercorns rained on my Ranco Gordo beans dish. So check that the disk doesn't loosen while grinding.

Drew

Mine never has, not even once. Maybe it was just on tighter in the first place? Anyway, they're good.

I've had one of these on the table for about three years now, with no complaints. Well, maybe one complaint: guests often seem to need training. One great positive as far as I'm concerned is the lack of pepper mess on the table that comes with the "upside down" operation. But that same attribute seems to bamboozle many on first encounter with the grinder. We've learned to be on the lookout for apparent confusion when people pick it up. It never seemed that complicated to me, so maybe what we need is better guest screening Anyway, in those three years I had the experience Drew mentioned exactly once and then immediately after having people over. We were convinced the problem was human error rather than grinder malfunction: somebody was too embarrassed to ask for help and loosened the fill cap in the process of trying to make it work. We've never had the problem in normal use and never pay attention to the cap. It's a very good grinder.